GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) is still reviewing data about Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine as part of hopes that it can be approved by the UN health agency for emergency use against coronavirus, but said Tuesday that no decision is imminent.
The clarification comes after Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko in recent days said that administrative issues were among the main holdups in WHO’s decision-making process about whether to grant an emergency use listing to Sputnik V, as it has for a half-dozen other vaccines.
Such approval would be a show of international confidence in the vaccine after a rigorous review process, and could pave the way for its inclusion into the COVAX program organized by WHO and key partners that is shipping COVID-19 vaccines to scores of countries around the world based on need.
“As with other candidate vaccines, WHO continues to assess Sputnik V vaccines from different manufacturing sites and will publish decisions on their EUL (emergency use listing) status when all the data are available and the review is concluded,” WHO said in a statement. “The EUL assessment process aims to speed up equitable access to vaccines in order to save lives and bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control.”
The vaccines WHO has approved are Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Sinovac and Sinopharm.
After a meeting with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Murashko on Saturday said “all barriers have been removed” for further review of Sputnik V, as quoted by Russian news agencies and the official Twitter page of the Sputnik V vaccine.
“Today we see no obstacles to further work,” and this was confirmed by Tedros, Murashko said. Some administrative procedures remained to be completed but the issues were not about the vaccine itself, he said.
On Monday, Murashko added that “disagreements” with WHO had been resolved, and the production sites and registering company in Russia “should submit the entire package of documents within a week or a week and a half, and the further process will begin.”
In a phone interview, WHO spokeswoman Daniela Bagozzi said Tuesday that only the WHO’s technical advisory group on emergency use listings — not the WHO director-general himself — has final say about whether a vaccine obtains emergency approval.
Once WHO receives the full amount of data that it needs, when production sites have been inspected, and when the data is deemed to meet WHO criteria, the group can schedule a meeting to validate a candidate vaccine for an emergency use listing.
No such meeting has been set for Sputnik V. The next vaccine on the group’s agenda is one from India’s Bharat Biotech, which is expected to be discussed this month.
WHO still reviewing Sputnik V vaccine, as Russia presses bid
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WHO still reviewing Sputnik V vaccine, as Russia presses bid
- WHO continues to assess Sputnik V vaccines from different manufacturing sites
- The vaccines WHO has approved are Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Sinovac and Sinopharm
Top Australian writers’ festival canceled after Palestinian author barred
- 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned after a Palestinian author was disinvited
SYDNEY: One of Australia’s top writers’ festivals was canceled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.
Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in February, following a decision by the festival’s board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author.
The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month’s shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism, and prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.
The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday its decision last week to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, on the grounds it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event “so soon after Bondi,” was made “out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event.”
“Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies,” the board said in a statement.
The event would not go ahead and remaining board members will step down, it added.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are among the authors who said they would no longer appear at the festival in South Australia state, Australian media reported.
The festival board on Tuesday apologized to Abdel-Fattah for “how the decision was represented.”
“This is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” it added.
Abdel-Fattah wrote on social media that she did not accept the apology, saying she had nothing to do with the Bondi attack, “nor did any Palestinian.”
Adler earlier wrote in The Guardian that the board’s decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah “weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t.”
The South Australian state government has appointed a new festival board.
